Tauches writes that "painters are the last great materialists in a world dematerialized by technology; they chose lifetyles which grow more eccentric with every passing year. They are ruled not by electronics, but by the physicality of materials—pigments, canvas, studio spaces, light, images made by hand and body. Either out of stubborn love of this tactical medium or a desire to be at the top of the pyramid, they are terribly dependent upon a class of people who can afford to keep and care for their wonderful, expensive, superfluous, and demanding two-dimensional objects."

Ledgerwood explains: "I decided that the most interesting thing I could do would be to work flat and to make paintings that were extremely flat but that would project out into the space and to try to address the architectural space, because the space in front of the wall seemed to be the only space that hadn't been addressed sufficiently in painting... I think that there's a lot of room left to really address the viewer. I think that's probably one thing that the Renaissance really did well, but they did it narratively and they did it through the formal construction of the painting. And I'm trying address the viewer not through some narrative hook, but to address the viewer because the paintings envelop the space."

Starting with James Lord's observations of Giacometti's intense process, a process that ended in abandonment, Rubinstein tests the theory of "provisional painting," asking: "What does it mean to believe that in order to create a work of art one must entertain the 'permanent possibility' of abandoning and to believe that something called 'freedom' inheres in this situation?"

Painters' Table

About Painters' Table

Edited by artist Brett Baker, Painters' Table highlights writing from the painting blogosphere as it is published and serves as a platform for exploring blogs that focus primarily on the subject of painting.